Cleveland State University’s Art Gallery will present a new exhibition of CSU professor Mark Slankard's photographs, “Toplu: Landscapes of New Turkish Suburbia.” Opening on Friday, August 28, the exhibit will run through Saturday, October 10 in the Main Gallery.

An opening reception will take place on August 28 from 5-8 p.m., preceded by a Gallery Talk at 4 p.m. with the artist. The exhibit, talk and reception are free and open to the public.

Translated, “Toplu” means collective and tidy or neat. The exhibition features Slankard's large-scale, color photographs that were made during visits to Turkey in 2008 and 2009. They explore the new mass residential developments on the outskirts of the Turkish cities of Ankara and Istanbul. Many of the mass-residences in the photographs are still under construction, plopped down into empty fields at a startling pace. Others are tidy high-rise condominium clusters that contrast starkly with the remnants of older settlements. The juxtaposition is often startling. Read more closely, the images reveal aspects of the social dynamics of the landscape's inhabitants and creators.

“These photographs don't depict the ancient Turkey of guidebooks,” said Robert Thurmer, Art Gallery director. “This is the Turkey of a rising middle class, complete with swimming pools, malls and IKEA.”

Slankard's work explores the influences of place and space as well as the social and psychological consequences of domesticity. His photographic and video works have been exhibited and screened widely, including at the Rotterdam International Film Festival, the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Columbia University in New York, Texas Tech University in Lubbock, the New Museum in New York, SoHo Photo Gallery in New York and Ohio State University's Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus. His work is featured in Robert Hirsch's textbooks, Exploring Color Photography (4th ed.) and Light and Lens.

Slankard is an Assistant Professor of Art at Cleveland State University. He received his Master of Fine Arts degree from Ohio University in 2002 and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Indiana University, where he also studied photography. He is a 2002 National Graduate Seminar Fellow of The Photography Institute at Columbia University. Before coming to CSU, he was an Associate Professor at Marshall University.

Also at the CSU Art Gallery, in Gallery C:

August 28 to September 12: SCENES UNSEEN, paintings by Ohio artist Harry Melroy, who is known for his mesmerizing color and painterly inventions. Gallery talk with the artist at 6 p.m. on August 28.

September 15 to October 10: RETORNO AL ORIGEN (RETURN TO THE SOURCE), works by Chilean artist Angelica Besnier, curated by Jacqueline C. Nanfito, Associate Professor of Spanish, Ethnic Studies and Women’s Studies, Department of Modern Languages & Literatures, Case Western Reserve University. Presented in celebration of Hispanic Awareness Month, co-sponsored with CSU’s Office of Diversity and Multicultural Affairs (ODAMA). Artist talk and reception on September 15 at noon.

Art Gallery hours are Monday through Friday from 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. and Saturdays from Noon– 4:00 p.m., closed Sundays and holidays. The Art Gallery is located at the corner of East 23rd Street and Chester Avenue (2307 Chester Avenue).

The Art Gallery is funded with the generous support of the Student General Fee, the Ohio Arts Council, the Friends of the Art Gallery, and individual gifts. For more information, please call the Art Gallery at 216.687.2103 or visit www.csuohio.edu/artgallery.

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